


Tentmates

by Unforth



Series: Prompt Fics: Supernatural [38]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, American Civil War, Dom/sub Undertones, Frottage, Hair-pulling, M/M, Sharing a Bed, Soldiers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-06
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2020-02-27 08:17:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18735175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unforth/pseuds/Unforth
Summary: Dean hates sharing a tent with Castiel Novak.





	Tentmates

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Darmys](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darmys/gifts), [ratafia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ratafia/gifts).



> I'm really struggling to write so I asked for prompts on Discord. Darmys suggested Soldier!Dean/Soldier!Cas and bed sharing, and imriss suggested hair pulling, and here we are.
> 
> Sorry about the formatting. Using Google docs to copy and paste Discord things and then format the text in a way that doesn't suck, all on mobile, is a pain in the ass (though imriss helped a lot, c&ping this into a gdoc for me, thank you!!).

Castiel was a pure city boy - in every sense of the term pure. Staid, virginal, well behaved, naive, idealistic...he was pretty much Dean's worst nightmare of a tentmate. It took less than five minutes for Dean to fucking hate him. He was everything Dean wasn't, had every privilege that Dean never did. The distance between Chicago and western Indiana was only about 50 miles but in every other sense they might as well be different planets. Castiel presumably just had a stroll down the street, walking cane in hand, to enlist, whereas Dean had walked two days straight. Not that the exercise was unfamiliar - not like for Castiel, already complaining about the blisters left by his brogans after a modest day's march of less than 10 miles. And now Castiel was kneeling on the ground, staring frustration at a square of burlap he'd pulled from his gear as if he'd never seen anything so alien and confusing in his life.

 

"Just give it to me," snapped Dean in disgust.

 

Helpless as a damn babe, Castiel complied. "What is it?"

 

"Bivouac tent." Dean rolled his eyes and gestured at the dozens of other soldiers around them who were assembling their own tents. Dean had shared one similar with Sam while they'd been out hunting more times than he could count.

 

Castiel watched in growing wonder as, quickly and with an economy of movement, Dean pitched the tent.

 

"Are you seriously using your rifle as a tent beam?" Castiel choked.

 

"The fuck else you planning to use your gun for whole you're asleep?" asked Dean. "Now, hand yours over."

 

"But what if we're attacked during the night?"

 

"...Novak, we're in Pennsylvania."

 

"There are secessionists in Pennsylvania! There are secessionists everywhere..."

 

"There are fucking idiots everywhere, too. And if you shoot me cause you got some weird nightmare that I'm Jeff Davis dressed in blue, I will haunt your ass forever."

 

Dean didn't wait for Castiel to answer. He finished pitching the damn tent, grabbed his wool blanket, and spread it on the ground.

 

"Won't you be cold?"

 

"Naw, that's what your blanket is for."

 

"...I'll be using my blanket..."

 

Dean heaved a long suffering sigh. "Look, angel, you ever slept on the bare ground?" He didn't bother waiting for Castiel's head shake, he knew the answer already. "One blanket on the ground to protect our butts from roots and keep the cold at bay. One blanket over us to keep us warm. Best arrangement."

 

"You want me to share a bed?" asked Castiel. Dean nodded. "With you?"

 

"No, with my dear grandma Deanna - yes with me, asshole."

 

"You're demanding we...cuddle?...and  _ I'm _ the asshole here?"

 

"Fine, freeze your tail off. All the same to me. I'm going to sleep." Dean was done with Castiel. Hopefully, the idiot would get himself shot in their first engagement and Dean could get himself paired up with someone who wasn't clueless. 

 

Ignoring Castiel, he went about an evening routine. He fried up some cracklins, mixing his hardtack in the dregs, making their gross rations into something vaguely palatable. He shaved, since they had water and might not later. He brushed the days dust from his uniform. The specifics were new - where he was, who he was with, the equipment available - but in a general sense everything he did was familiar.

 

Castiel watched it all, wide eyed and overwhelmed. Boy scout's first bivouac was apparently an eye opener.

 

Heck, better than getting shot, maybe the brat would catch dysentery

 

As long as he didn't give it to Dean, too.

 

Finally, the trumpets sounded taps, and curfew, and Dean bedded down, wrapping himself in his blanket and uniform coat as best he could so there would be no exposed skin. Beside him, Castiel tossed and turned, softly miserable as he found each position less comfortable than the previous. With the fall of dark, the country night was cold - even Dean, used to Indiana winters in a drafty one room cabin, got the shivers. City boy with his fine fires and brick walls must be freezing. Dean could feel the heat leaking from Castiel, longed for it on a purely physical level, and though he resisted...he noticed that heat getting closer.

 

As dusk stretched on toward deep midnight, they drew together, until finally with a sigh, they eased back to back. Castiel shifted his blanket onto Dean - a tentative peace offering - and Dean accepted and reciprocated.

 

"Dean..." Castiel murmured blearily.

 

"Yeah, Cas?"

 

He expected an apology, a thanks, a sign of appreciation, even a simple "good night" breathed into the cold air. Instead, Cas murmured, "Is your grandma really named  _ Dean _ na?"

 

"Shut up and go to sleep," grumbled Dean.

 

And Castiel did.

 

They both did.

 

*

 

They woke up tangled together, warm through. Having Castiel close was nice, and judging by the soft, oddly tender sounds Castiel leaked as Dean shifted free, Castiel found it nice, too. 

 

Neither said anything of it as they packed they brewed coffee, as they ate the congealed remains of the night's dinner, as they packed their gear and donned their packs and lifted their rifles and stumbled into ranks. 

 

Neither said anything of it as they marched all day. 

 

Neither said anything of it when, relieved and exhausted, they mercifully stopped for the night. 

 

Neither said anything of it when, silently and together, they built their tent and laid out their blankets.

 

Neither said anything of it as they bedded down side by side and eased against each other.

 

Maybe Cas isn't so bad after all, Dean thought as he drifted off to sleep. 

 

One of Castiel's hands cupped his side and he leaned in closer. Warmth trickled through Dean. 

 

Not so bad at all.

 

*

 

Army life was about dreary, unaltered, deadly dull routine followed by rote day in and day out, punctuated by brief periods of soul-shattering terror.

 

Dean was surprised when Castiel settled comfortably into that routine. He was surprised when he settled comfortably into that routine with Castiel beside him. But what surprised him most was Castiel's response to their first battle.

Dean was long past thinking Castiel a coward who would crumble at the sight of adversity - after the kind of reflection allowed by day upon day of unrelieved boredom, he'd concluded he had no idea how Castiel would react - but the last thing he'd expected was to see Castiel, calm and clear eyed, loading and firing and standing his ground cool as a cucumber. Fighting beside him, Dean felt braver by damn osmosis.

 

He was so, so relieved that Castiel did not get shot in their encounter.

 

Beyond exhausted, still sweaty and filthy with gunpowder and blood splatter, Dean whispered that relief in Castiel's ear as they lay together in the middle of the night, too rattled and broken and haunted to sleep.

 

"Just...just don't leave me, Cas..."

 

"I won't, Dean."

 

"And...you want me to stay?"

 

"Always..." There was something sad and undefinable in Castiel's voice. 

 

Maybe...maybe Castiel really wanted Dean by his side, in the same unspeakable way that Dean wanted Castiel beside him?

 

Impossible.

 

Probably just the the sorrow of the comrades they'd lost that day. 

 

"Always."

 

*

 

Arousal was a normal enough problem. Every camp had places where the men would go to work out some tension, pointedly ignoring the other men there doing the same. But that next morning, hard and forlorn, Dean couldn't imagine leaving Castiel's side. Though he was embarrassed by his little problem, he shifted, moved his crotch farther from Castiel's behind, moved his arm to hold Castiel's torso more closely to him.

 

A shake of Castiel's head embarrassed him; he moved away, tried to give Castiel more space, but Castiel seized his hand, shimmied back against Dean, dragged Dean's fingers over his torso and to his crotch.

 

Castiel's problem was anything but little.

 

And cupping that hardness in his hand felt...good. Castiel's behind rubbing against Dean's crotch felt better. Dizzy, confused, but not opposed, Dean tentatively rubbed at Castiel, drank up the fervent pleased sighs that Castiel approvingly leaked.

 

"I think," Castiel murmured, voice gravelly and dry and gorgeously rough, "we've finally found an area where I am the more experienced of the two of us."

 

"Sex?" asked Dean skeptically. "Ain't no virgin, Cas…"

 

"Sex with  _ men _ ?"

 

Dean swallowed. Yeah, Castiel had him there. In more sense than one.

 

Guess Castiel wasn't a virgin, either.

 

Twisting against him, Castiel got his lips against Dean's ear. "Roll over."

 

And hell if Dean didn't obey, and a damn sight more enthusiastically than he obeyed most commands he got in the course of the day.

 

Castiel rolled with him, his chest coming to rest flush with Dean's back, his cock hard against Dean's backside. One of Castiel's hands slid beneath the curve of Dean's waist, trapped against the ground, and cupped Dean's erection. Castiel's other hand crept up Dean's chest, pausing over his pounding heart.

 

"We can make each other feel...so good..." Castiel breathed around a desperate swallow. "But you have to be quiet. Can you be quiet?"

 

Dean nodded fervently.

 

"Is that how you answer a superior officer?"

 

"We're both privates, Cas..."

 

Castiel squeezed his cock, combined pressure bordering into pain rocking through Dean. "Can. You. Be. Quiet?"

 

"Yes, sir," Dean managed.

 

And then Castiel started to move.

 

His body shifted slowly against Dean's, undulating, only the rustle of fabric betraying his arousal. Castiel's hand slid into Dean's trousers, cold palm shocking a sound from Dean as it wrapped around his sweltering arousal.

 

"One strike."

 

Castiel's other hand crept up and clasped Dean's throat. Pain and pleasure scattered like twinkling sparks over Dean's darkening vision. His sense of the war encompassing them, the camp surrounding them, fell awake. There was only himself - vulnerable and small - contained by Castiel, surrounded by Castiel. Solid weight supported Dean's back, a hard erection thrust against his backside, a warming hand stroked him, calloused and rough, gentle and tender, and Castiel's thumb dug into his neck. Dean's pulse thundered through his body, pounded like cannon fire in his ears.

 

"Two strikes."

 

Dean didn't realize he'd made a noise. Castiel's hand left his throat, left his body, and he choked back a sorrowful noise he was ashamed to have produced. The hand was back a moment later, stuffing rough, gritty cloth between Dean's lips.

 

"Three strikes."

 

Castiel arched back from him, fingers grasping his head, tensing against his skull. His hips never stopped working against Dean's backside, though, nor did his hand leave Dean's cock. His strokes were rough, uneven, increasingly desperate. Dean's breaths came in desperate pants, and his body moved without his conscience direction, working back against Castiel, working forward into the bliss promised by Castiel's cupping him.

 

Dean's hair, thick and tangled with the memories of yesterday's battle, caught around Castiel's fingers. Castiel pulled, the pleasure burning through him punctured by a dozen, a thousand, innumerable pinpricks of pain. Gasping, salivating around the cloth clogging his mouth, Dean scrambled, fingers scrambling uselessly at their blankets. Pressure filled him, overflowed him, every jolt of hurt spiraling his ecstasy higher. He couldn't get enough air, couldn't get enough pleasure, couldn't get enough Castiel.

Castiel's hand twisted, jerking Dean's head to the side, and he growled, "come for me, country boy."

 

Dean exploded.

 

It was absurd - it was only an orgasm, so far from his first - but he did come, and he came apart, with Castiel squeezing his cock and Castiel pulling his hair and Castiel driving him higher and higher.

 

It felt an eon, it felt a blink of an eye, before he crashed back down into himself, drawing air desperately through his nose, chest heaving, pants sodden with come.

 

Castiel's heavy breathing behind him was an anchor, a crutch, an undeniable sign that Dean wasn't the only one wrecked by their encounter. The sounds of the camp around them crept within the tent, bustle and clanking pots and snorting horses and the scuff of shoes on dirt, but it was not part of the world that he and Castiel shared when they curled up close and slept...and now did more than sleep...together.

 

"I was afraid I'd lose you yesterday," Castiel breathed hoarsely, gently petting the strands he had so recently abused.

 

Dean longed to reply, but managed only a soft grunt. "Oh, right," Castiel muttered, and pulled the sodden cloth from Dean's mouth.

 

"That implies you had me," Dean managed.

 

Castiel froze.

 

Cold fear made the air in the tent thick, different than the numbing terror of the day before but somehow just as fraught.

 

"How'd you know?" asked Dean. Castiel heaved a sigh against him, slumped close, wrapped both arms around Dean's chest and shuddered against Dean's back.

 

"Didn't," Castiel whispered. "But I hoped..."

 

"Hope," Dean echoed. The word was foreign, strangely new. He'd always been focused on the task at hand, always focused on survival. Hope was for city boys with the luxury to look toward the future. But now neither of them might have a future. Thinking about that hurt. And Dean hoped...Dean  _ hoped _ ... 

 

"Let's hope together," Dean suggested...hopefully.

 

"...I'd like that. A lot."

 

Reveille sounded, and a new day dawned.

 

And Dean hoped it was but the first of many with Castiel holding him close and cherished.

 

"Come on, Dean, time to get up."

 

"I'll always get up for you, Cas."

 

"When I get made sergeant there will be hell to pay, boy..."

 

"Well then, I hope it's soon, cause that sounds awesome."

 

"I hope so too, Dean. I hope so too."

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I've kinda been avoiding Tumblr and pf of late but if you wanna hmu I'm on tumblr every day, mostly on ProfoundBond. Feel free to tag me...

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [A War of Their Own](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18856123) by [chucks_prophet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chucks_prophet/pseuds/chucks_prophet)




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